The Orphaned Europe Quartier

Looking down the Rue de Madrid towards
the
Place de l'Europe.

Sub-Divided By Rails

Paris:- Saturday, 28. October 2000:- Flipping
through the thick brochure for 'Paris en 80 Quartiers'
reveals a hint of an exhibition of astonishing complexity.
Here, I should point out that I haven't actually seen any
of it yet.

The past, present and future are represented by images.
This means images from archives, images made recently by
students, images produced by Web-cams, video images and
images taken from satellites. These last have been used for
aerial photos and they have been also rendered to produce a
3D views of Paris.

In the exhibition's brochure alone, some of these images
are arresting. For example, the quartier called 'Europe' is
shown as a high-definition look-down from near outer space
- showing the Place de l'Europe as a crossroads above the
rail lines leading into the Gare Saint-Lazare.

This has made me think about living in this quartier.
There is, of course, no 'life' above the rails - so it has
to be beyond them, mostly in the 8th arrondissement and
sideswiping the edge of the 9th.

This 'Europe' quartier also includes the Gare
Saint-Lazare, because its two main axis, the Rue de Rome
and the Rue d'Amsterdam, begin at the
Rue Saint-Lazare on either side of the front of the
station. From here they rise upwards to the Rue des
Batignolles and the Place de Clichy.

Here is what
wrecked a nice little Paris sub-division 160 years ago -
the rails.

As the brochure says, within this area Parisians take
their kids to school, go to the post office, have their
apéros in the neighborhood cafés, do their
local shopping, go to church, get married - but a quick
look through some of my old and newer guide books reveals
that this 'Europe' quartier boasts no sights of any
interest whatsoever to any potential visitor.

Officially, the 8th arrondissement's interest stops at
the 'Monceau plain' to the west and the eastern area
closest to Gare Saint-Lazare. From the rear of the station,
to the northwest, in all the streets with European city
names, there are no cited cafés, monuments, museums
or hotels.

The one exception is a restaurant called the Singe d'Eau
in the Rue de Moscou, which is oriented towards Tibetan
specialties. The authentic decor matches the food and it is
not expensive; but it is closed on Sundays.

'Europe'
In the Past

There are two 'pasts' here; Europe's and mine. Ten years
ago I started spending a lot of time 'in Europe' behind
Saint-Lazare because it had a photo lab I used, and there
was a bookshop with imported books about computing.

The photo lab was just off the Rue d'Amsterdam near
métro Liège, and the bookshop was beyond the
Place de Dublin in the Rue de Moscou. Usually I went to
both from Saint-Lazare, but occasionally I'd start at the
top, at métro Rome. At another time a reader asked
about some sheet music, and I found a number of shops in
the Rue de Rome for this.

Now I'll skip to Europe's past - because it does have
one, even if it is overshadowed by the
arrondissement's vastly more
famous and celebrated Champs-Elysées, Concorde, the
Madeleine, Monceau and George V areas.

On one of the
'city' streets - a maker of stringed instruments next door
to a 'droguerie,' selling mops and brooms.

Before 1826, Europe's east side was occupied by the
Folie-Boutin, which later became the Tivoli, a 'jardin des
attractions.' In its second incarnation, it was the first
in Paris to have a ballroom lit by gas-lamps, but was
poorly managed and went bust in 1830 and again in 1833, and
for all eternity in 1841.

At about the same time - in February, 1826 - Jonas
Hagermann and Sylvain Mignon, obtained a permit to
subdivide what is now the Europe quartier, with the idea of
a series of streets radiating out from a centre at the
Place de l'Europe. In all, 24 streets were opened between
1826 and 1843.

What the two promoters didn't count on was the train
station for the Paris-Le Pecq-Versailles rail line, which
was originally planned to be near the Place de la Concorde,
then near the Madeleine. There was so much opposition to
these locations that the Place de l'Europe was chosen, and
then in 1841, it moved again to its present location.

Jonas Hagermann and Sylvain Mignon must have been
opposed to this, but since the Gare Saint-Lazare is neither
at Concorde nor Madeleine, it seems as if they were
outvoted.

This caused the Place de l'Europe to be built as a
bridge out of iron and steel over the tracks, in 1866, by
the same outfit which constructed the arrondissement's
Mairie. The station was rebuilt again from 1885 to 1889, so
that its main part looks about as it does
today.

'Europe' In the Present, Partly

Since there is a bit of a hill to this, I start at the
top, from métro Rome, and begin with the west side
by walking into the wind down the Rue de Rome which was
opened in 1859, after the tracks were put in.

The block-square Lycée Chaptal, right on the
corner of the Rue de Rome and the Boulevard des
Batignolles, was built from 1866 to
1876 and it is a wicked hodge-podge of gables, chimneys and
towers, made with brick, stone, tiles, iron and reliefs
with names like 'Athéna.'

Near the Place de
l'Europe, just off the Rue de Rome, the métro
followed the rails by 60 years.

I take a right turn into the short Rue de Copenhague,
which was opened in 1868. This is followed by the more
substantial Rue de Naples, which was partly opened in 1826
with the name of Hambourg, but this doesn't explain the
small size of its street signs. Guillaume Apollinaire lived
in this street for a time.

The Rue de Constantinople slashes across Rue de Rome
diagonally, going down to the Place de l'Europe; from where
it continues as the Rue de Londres. Without the huge ditch
full of rails, how would this have looked?

In the Rue de Rome, on both sides, and on all these side
streets, there are many shops where stringed instruments
are made, repaired; bought and sold. Near the Rue de
Madrid, there are also shops with wind instruments and
others with sheet music. This is Paris' non-electronic
music centre.

The Conservatoire National de Musique was located at 14.
Rue de Madrid until recently. It had been installed here in
1911, in the former Petit Collège Saint-Ignace,
founded in 1874, across the street from the Grand
Collége Saint-Ignace.

The Conservatoire has moved to Cité de la Musique
at La Villette with its museum. This may change the
neighborhood - but now the Conservatoire Supérieur
de Paris has taken up residence at the same address, and I
hear a saxophone playing in the Rue de Madrid.

The Rue de Madrid was on the drawing boards in 1826, but
only opened in 1867 when part of Rue Lisbonne was attached,
which nearly goes all the way to the Parc de Monceau. Why
part of the same street switched names is unknown.

The odd Rue du Rocher crosses the Rue de Madrid on an
iron bridge, about two floors up. This is part of old road
that was called the Rue de la Petit-Pologne at end of 16th
century.

It twisted past several moulins - windmills - and was
probably named after an auberge
sign, 'Au Roi de Pologne,' which was an allusion to the Duc
d'Anjou, King of Poland and future Henri III, who owned the
area of the Cour de Rome.

Under Louis XV the Rue de la Petit-Pologne was
straightened out. At number 30, Rue du Rocher, was a
hôtel owned by Lucien Bonaparte. In 1823 the painter
Pierre Prud'hon died at number 32. In the same street, at
numbers two and four, there is a small house where Casanova
lived in 1759.

Number 64 is the home of the Théâtre
Tristan-Bernard, the ex-theatre of Charles de Rochefort,
who died in 1952. The Rochefort history includes a
Hollywood stint and the current theatre features well-known
French actors.

On this western side, the last street is the short Rue
de Stockholm which opened in 1831; before St-Lazare moved
south from the Place de l'Europe and cut it off from the
Rue d'Amsterdam. Eight years later the Saint-Lazare station
was extended to the Rue de Rome from the Amsterdam
side.

This is where I cross to the eastern side through the
Place de l'Europe, which is not a 'place' at all, but a
round-about above the train tracks - where three formerly
whole streets intersect, creating six half-streets.

Before Saint-Lazare moved for the last time, the station
called L'Imbarcadère de la Ligne
Saint-Germain-en-Laye was here.

One of these eastern streets is the Rue de
Saint-Pétersbourg which was also opened in 1826. It
was renamed Pétrograd in 1914, renamed again as
Leningrad in 1945 and now it is back to its original name
again. I think the French taught the Russians how to do
this.

The painter Edouard Manet died in 1883 at the age of 51
at number 39 in this street, after having lived at number
four until 1878 and then at number 77 in the Rue
d'Amsterdam in 1877.

The Place de Dublin is another important crossroads of
six streets, where the Rue de Moscou goes through from Rue
d'Amsterdam up to the Boulevard des Batignolles. Its
opening started in 1840 and was completed in 1867. I don't
see any signs of its reputed 'pulpeuses' nymphs though.

Beginning from the same place is the Rue de Bucarest
which opened in 1826 as the Rue de Hambourg. In the
original plan, this ex-Rue de Hambourg reached across to
the Rue de Naples on the western side - so there are now
two widely separated streets that have the same
ex-name.

The Rue de Liége, opened in 1826, begins at the
Place de l'Europe and extends the Rue de Madrid on the west
side. It is the ex-Rue de Berlin, renamed in 1914. Number
24 is a gothic-appearing house built by Viollet-le-Duc in
1846 for Henri Courmont.

The corner where Rue de Moscou and Rue de Liège
meet the Rue d'Amsterdam looks a bit like this sub-quartier
is having a down period. A lot of traffic is always coming
down Amsterdam from the Place de Clichy, so it is not
relaxing and its shopping activity seems to be in
decline.

Just before getting to Saint-Lazare the Rue de Londres
slants in from the Place de l'Europe, which was in the 1826
plan. It passed through the original placement of the
Folie-Boutin and later, Tivoli, and was opened up from 1836
to 1843.

In 1837, Hector Berlioz lived at number 34 with his
first wife. The construction work was so noisy, he
worked up under mansard. If
this caused the marriage fall apart is unknown, but Berlioz
moved with his mistress to the Rue de Provence and his
wife, to the Rue Blanche.

The Rue d'Amsterdam was also named in 1826 and
lengthened to reach the Rue Saint-Lazare in 1843, to match
the station's new location. The furnished Hotel de Dieppe
is in it, where Baudelaire translated Edgar Allen Poe in
1860. Alexandre Dumas, the elder, lived at number 72 in
1843.

Specialties of the 'western' Europe - guitars
and brasses, plus sheet music shops.

Although 'Europe' is one of Paris' '80 Quartiers,' it is
this in name only - as in street names. What probably began
as a reasonably well laid-out urban plan was destroyed
shortly after its inception by the new mania for
railroads.

However, this may change. There is rapidly increasing
commerce near the Gare Saint-Lazare, which is being helped
by the new RER line coming in from Paris' northeast. Late
this afternoon, it seems as if the whole world is milling
around the Place du Harve.

Sooner or later the SNCF is going to decide that its
air-space over the rails could be valuable real-estate. If
this ever happens, there will be a chance to reunite the
two orphaned halves of 'Europe.'

This leaves the coming exhibition to find
out how 'Europe' has been treated. It should be featured
along with the rest of the 8th arrondissement's many
treasures, from Tuesday, 28. November until Wednesday, 20.
December.

This will take place in the Mairie - the
arrondissement's city hall - which is at 3. Rue de
Lisbonne, with the nearest métro being the Europe
stop.